


Blind Date

by gomez36000



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Flowerpot Discord Drabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26701420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gomez36000/pseuds/gomez36000
Summary: It was challenging to find yourself after the war ended. Some people picked up work, some started new hobbies. One such hobby included setting up the hero of the wizarding world on blind dates. Tonks may not be ready to reenter the dating world, but she's more than happy thrusting Harry into it with a grin on her face. Made as part of the first Flowerpot discord server collection.
Relationships: Fleur Delacour/Harry Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 95
Collections: Flowerpot Garden Collection One





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a part of the first ever drabble collection put together by the lovely authors over at the flowerpot discord! You can find us at https: //discord .gg/ Np2zjAH

Dense smoky air hung low in the Clumsy Badger. A high, two-story ceiling did little to help, instead just amplifying the jovial conversations and friendly shouts that rolled through the sizable pub. The bottom floor, as it was most nights, was packed to the point of standing-room-only. The tall standing tables that normally dotted the space had been pushed beneath the balcony that wrapped around the upper floor, overlooking the crowd below.

Harry slipped through the crowd as best he could manage, eventually giving up on apologizing to everyone he jostled. He ducked a pint that was being used as a boisterous storytelling device, the inebriated man swinging it telling of fanciful duels from the war. Harry slipped away from the group, lest he be recognized.

Tonks’ pub had a well-enforced ‘no gawking over the celebrities’ policy, one for which he was supremely grateful, but it never hurt to avoid the over-friendly drunks. He slid between two portly men who called welcomes to their approaching friends. The stench of alcohol-infused sweat assaulted him with the same enthusiasm of the boisterous men. He waved a hand ineffectually in front of his face as he approached the bar.

Tonks waited for him, a glass in one hand and his favorite firewhisky in the other. She sported a garish neon green hairdo that fell to just below her shoulders. He let out an inaudible sigh. Bright green foretold a mischievous Tonks.

It’d taken him a handful of years to learn Tonks' secret hair language. He doubted that she was conscious of its existence, and had no plans to give up such a valuable tool. Pink when she was bored, red when she was ready to fight, and its natural light-brown when she was playing with Teddy. He nearly stumbled at the thought of his godson. His fourth birthday was coming up. How could that be possible?

He grabbed the glass from Tonks and downed the drink in a single smooth motion. Warmth rolled down his throat and his back eliciting pleasant shivers that traveled through his body.

“Wotcher, Harry.” She snagged the empty glass from his hand and dropped it somewhere out of sight.

He frowned at his empty hand. “Just the one? Usually, you let me have at least two before forcing me into these things.”

The tips of her hair burst into a nervous orange before she got herself under control. Shoulders tensed, he checked his wand in his pocket before mentally berating himself for the old habit. Her pub wasn’t that sort of place. Tonks and her three hulking bouncers had seen to that. Sure there had been a brawl or two back in the early days of the bar, back when she was still searching everywhere for that spark that made her…her. She hadn’t needed bouncers back then. Even now, the ex-Auror often finished any fights that started in earnest with deft precision.

Tonks shook her head, her now solid green hair shaking with the movement, brushing at the tops of her shoulders. “You’re gonna want to be on your game for this one.” She grinned, a spark lighting in her eyes.

He sighed, making a halfhearted swipe for the bottle of firewhisky she had left on the counter, but she slid it out of reach with a shake of her head.

“I can’t believe you like this stuff,” she said, inspecting the bottle as one might inspect a screaming mandrake baby. “It’s horrible. Burns my mouth.”

“I like spicy things.” He shrugged and leaned against the bar, surveying the bustling pub. An odd mix of anxiety and contentment roiled in his stomach next to the alcohol. Tonks’ place was one of the few locations he could visit unaccosted, even all these years later. Not to say a few people hadn’t tried, but they’d swiftly found themselves deposited outside in the dingy side-street of Diagon Alley.

“Well then, have I got news for you,” she said, leaning forward in an effort to not be overheard by the other patrons at the long bartop. “Tonight’s meetup has all the ‘spice’ you’ll need.”

He glanced at her sidelong, a pit forming in his stomach. He tolerated Tonks’ friendly matchmaking efforts, but her meddling occasionally grew out of hand. Alarm bells rang to the tone of bright orange tips.

“Tonks…” he warned. “Exactly who is waiting for me back there?”

She shrugged, her hair staying obstinately green. Damn. He narrowed his eyes. Unforgivable time then. “Nympha-”

“It’s not a blind date if I tell you who it is,” she said, plonking another glass of firewhisky down in front of her. He downed it in one quick movement. It tasted of spicy olive branch.

“It better not be who I think it is,” he grumbled, groaning when he saw the guilty twitch. “That ship has sailed, Tonks.” She busied herself with dirty glasses, tapping the empty ones on the bar top with her wand, sending them flying through the air to the sink. “Tonks!”

She whirled on him, pointing her wand at his nose, fire in her eyes. Years of learned control kept him from ducking out of the way, but it was a near thing.

Her hair was a bright vibrant red. Better than black he supposed. Then he would have been in proper trouble. People often forgot that the affable woman descended from one of the most historically violent and unstable pureblood lines. Tonks almost never took after her aunt. Almost.

“You owe me, Harry,” she said, her eyes flitting down to her wand. She let her hand fall with an apologetic smile.

“This isn’t how life debts are supposed to be used,” he groused. “It’d be much easier to reciprocate and save you from a dark wizard, rather than to keep going through all this.” He pointed a finger at her. “After this one, debt settled.”

“That’s not fair,” she complained, casting a guilty glance towards the side of the pub that held the stairwell to the upper rooms, where his ‘mystery’ date waited for him.

“It’s not fair to set me up on a date with my ex.” He pulled off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “How about this. I promise to at least try. No guarantees, but I won’t be an arse about it. I do that, and I’m off the hook.”

“Seems a weak bargain for me to lose my bragging rights. I’ve got our savior at my personal beck and call. If I’m in trouble, Harry Potter himself swoops in to help,” she said, grinning.

He made a face. “Ugh. I’d help you anyway, you know. Gross. Do you actually brag to people about it?”

“Of course not!” she said, affronted. “Well, only to people who know you better than that. It helps because they also know it’s true.”

“Shoulda let me get cursed,” he grumbled. “It would’ve been less trouble. One more after this one. That’s my final offer, take it or leave it. If this meetup doesn’t work out, you get one more.”

“I’d have to make it a doozy then, huh,” she said, staring up at the ceiling in thought. The sound of breaking glass pulled her from her thoughts and she hopped the bar in one practiced motion. “Quit stalling,” she said as she passed, wand in hand. “Either I’ve got some cleanup to do or a fight to finish. Either way, I’ve got it covered. Don’t keep her waiting any longer. First door on the right.”

Harry slipped through the pub-goers, moving against the flow of drunk people shifting as one to watch the commotion. He jostled his way through, finally breaking free. Grumbling from the crowd told him that whatever the reason behind the noise had been, it hadn’t escalated into a fight. He avoided the first stair, a rickety board that he vaguely remembered promising to fix during one of their late-evening drunken chats. As usual, he was already halfway up the stairs before he remembered, and made a mental note to take care of the transfiguration on his way out. Hopefully sooner, rather than later.

He glanced out over the pub as he climbed the last few steps, spotting Tonks’ now icy-blue hair snaking through the bodies below. He turned to find a solitary figure sitting at one of the tall tables, halfway down the balcony.

He blinked. Was this who Tonks had been talking about? He hadn’t seen her in years. But wasn’t she-

She waved to him, beckoning him to join her at the table. He slid into the tall seat opposite her, desperately searching for the calm resignation he had held only moments before. It returned, if unwillingly.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” he said, clasping his hands together on the table. He wished he had a drink to sip. “You're not who I was expecting.”

Fleur smiled. A perfect, knowing smile. He was all of seventeen again, capturing forbidden glances before fleeing his relatives' house.

“The one you are expecting still waits in that room,” she said, her crystalline voice less accented than he remembered. “I am merely here for support.”

“You came to support me?”

Her smile grew and she stared at him with those piercing blue eyes of hers. No, he was fourteen again. A ‘leetle boy'.

He wasn’t having that.

“I thought you two didn’t get along. Now you’re coming as an emotional support friend?” He leaned back in his chair, returning her smile with one of his own to take any potential sting from his words.

“She has been…making an effort.” Her fingers wrapped around a glass of wine that sat in front of her, and she lifted it to her lips. “I am sure you recall that she was not very fond of me early on.”

He nodded. “I figured it was because you were stealing her big brother.”

“ _Stealing_ ,” she said with a scoff, setting her glass down with enough force to jostle the liquid inside. “That was part of it, I have no doubt. I will not bore you with the stories of why women often hate me and mine.” She pursed her lips, staring at him for a tense moment. “But there may be truth in your words. She did not reach out until after Bill and I were no longer together.”

“You and Bill split up?” He was suddenly glad for his lack of drink, as his jerk of surprise would’ve surely dumped the glass. “I hadn’t heard.”

“A side effect of making yourself unavailable to the world, I suspect.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“At the behest of a misapplied life debt?” One perfect eyebrow arched in question. She pushed a lock of silvery hair behind her ear. “Not everyone has such a convenient hold of you.”

“You make it sound worse than it is,” he said, shrugging.

“You are here to meet with your ex-fiancee.”

“That’s…a fair point.” Another glass broke downstairs and he heard Tonks’ indistinct bellow from behind the bar.

“A hectic place,” Fleur said, leaning over to peek over the balcony railing. “I am surprised she does not hold the establishment to a higher standard. Surely she can afford it, considering her family.”

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow in surprise. Or rather, both, as he had never mastered the impressive technique. “Tonks’ family was disinherited. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

Fleur frowned at him and took another drink of wine. “Our paths did not cross much, even during the war. What little of your country’s pureblood fanaticism I know, I learned by listening.”

He grinned, which seemed to make her frown deeper. He supposed he should let her off the hook. “I couldn’t tell you a thing about the French class system if there is one, so I can’t exactly hold you to task for the mistake.”

“Another cost of your isolation?” A smile. A sip.

“Being a hermit isn’t so bad. Plenty of time for myself. Nobody banging my door down for interviews or favors.”

“Only the ones who ask you to meet with people you do not wish to meet?”

“It’s…complicated,” he said, fighting the urge to check downstairs for his friend. “Besides, Teddy is my godson. I’ve got to check on him every once in a while.”

She nodded, content with his answer. He was surprised that made him happy.

“What is it you do when passing the time in your hermitage? I would expect it to be rather boring.”

“Read or bake, mostly,” he said. “If I get really bored I’ll pop out to Diagon or Hogsmeade so the tabloids will run their ‘Harry Sighting’ headlines for a few days. That’s always good for a laugh.”

Her eyes twinkled with the smile that crossed her face, and she let out a soft laugh. “I find myself believing you. Why pick up such a bizarre hobby?”

“Those people used to peek in my windows before I learned I needed to charm them. Then they’d hire out-of-work curse breakers to dispel my charms, and I had to get a home placed under the Fidelius. I figure costing them some money while they try to figure out where I’m coming from is fair game.”

She nodded, finishing off the rest of her glass. She peered at it for a moment before holding it out to him. “I will have another. You should get something for yourself as well. It is not proper for only one of us to be drinking.”

He glanced at the door that waited for him by the stairs. “I should probably-”

She shook the glass between two fingers, her eyes locked expectantly on his. He plucked the glass from her waiting hand and stood. He doubted his conversation with Ginny was going to go well. No reason he couldn’t enjoy catching up with an old friend before subjecting himself to that.

Tonks was behind the bar, her back to him as she rummaged through a lower cabinet. Her hair was bright pink and she hummed to herself as she shifted through the cabinet. He clinked his glass on the bar, smiling.

“I’ve got a name and I’m sure you know it,” she said, not turning around. “And if you whistle at me you’ll be sailing through the front windows.”

“You can try,” he said, “but I doubt it.”

She spun and stood, her eyes wide with surprise. She looked down at the empty glass. “Did you two polish off the bottle already? I didn’t think you liked wine all that much.”

“I don’t,” he said, handing over the glass to be refilled. His heart warmed as she filled the glass halfway. Tipsy angry Ginny was far less fighty than sober angry Ginny. He winced internally. She’d been waiting long enough that he was sure he’d see at least one of them.

“Firewhisky then?” she asked, already pouring some into a glass.

“No,” he said. “Just a beer. I don’t want to get drunk.”

“But I’ve already poured it!”

“Drink it yourself,” he said, pushing the glass to her. She made a face, then foisted it off on a man sitting a few seats away. “On the house.” She turned back to Harry. “Things are going well then?”

“After a fashion,” he said. “My beer?”

“You’re as pushy as everyone else is,” she grumbled, grabbing a glass and filling it from the nearby tap.

“Imagine that,” he said, picking up his glass before the condensation had a chance to form. “Wanting service at a bar.”

“Get going. Don’t want to keep the lady waiting.”

He nodded, hoping none of his guilt seeped through his calm expression. Ginny would be furious with him, but Tonks would get an earful too. Though…it served her right for meddling.

Fleur waited for him patiently, her hands folded in her lap. She accepted her glass with quiet thanks and took a small drink. He followed suit and tried not to make a face. Tonks knew he hated this one. Tricky.

“You do not like it?” Fleur asked, gesturing to his drink.

“I made Tonks waste some alcohol, so she got me back.”

“By wasting more alcohol?”

“True, but trust me, she won.”

She shrugged and pushed her glass forward. “You may have some if you wish.”

He shook his head. “Thanks, but I’m not really a big fan of wine.”

Another eyebrow, somehow now conveying stark disapproval. “We will fix this.”

He took an involuntary sip of his beer, then pushed it away, shuddering. “I doubt it. Wine is always so dry. I can’t stand it.”

“I have my work cut out for me I see.”

“I don’t know-”

“I am free next week at this time,” Fleur said, glancing down to a silver watch on her wrist. She looked over his shoulder before focusing on him. “If you are free as well, I will spare some time to properly educate you.”

“How thoughtful of you,” he said slowly. He could feel the trap closing around him, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. If anything, it sounded like a…date.

“I am quite generous, to an extent,” she said, smiling an oddly predatory smile. It sent shivers up his spine.

He took control of himself and stared her down. He must have long since lost his edge if she was getting the better of him. “And you think I have nothing better to do than to bow to the whims of someone I haven’t seen in years?”

“You would rather read and cook? Maybe taunt the journalists?”

“Well…”

“An evening with me is not so terrible a prospect, I am sure. Make your decision. The offer will not come twice.”

Despite himself, he reached out and took another drink of the too-bitter beer to stall for time. It did sound like a date. But, did he want to date Fleur Delacour?

He set the glass down.

What a stupid question.

“I’d like to enjoy myself at least. I don’t want to be drinking something I don’t like the whole time,” he said, letting a small smile curve his lips. “You get three chances to pick a wine I’ll like.”

“I had presumed the dinner and my company would be enough to satisfy you,” she said with a dangerous smile. “But I accept your challenge. I want you to enjoy yourself.”

Before he could reply, there was a slam behind him.

The first door on the right had slammed open, exposing a whirlwind of anger and red hair.

She’d let it grow again. It was…nostalgic.

“I’m gonna fucking-” Ginny’s fledgling tirade faltered as she spotted them sitting at their table.

Movement from Fleur caught his eye and he turned to see her wave to Ginny. Not the beckoning call he had received, but a dismissive fluttering of her fingers. Her smile grew from its polite placidity to something fierce.

Something victorious.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well well well. A second chapter to the 'one-shot' that was Blind Date. Does this mean that this is an ongoing multi-chapter work?
> 
> No. No it does not.
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to Red, the legend that took over the Flowerpot Server from our bumbling hands and turned it into one of the most helpful, writing-positive places I've ever come across.
> 
> And all the extra fpot content is nice too.
> 
> So here's to you Red. Cheers bud.

“Impossible.”

“Hardly.”

“Try it again. You didn’t give it time to breathe.”

As instructed, Harry lifted the much-too-fancy crystal glass and sipped, as he had been strictly instructed, instead of gulped. It was, as he had said, awful. Not as awful as the Carignan Fleur had foisted on him during their last not-strictly-a-date that always ended in evenings full of laughter and exhausting fun. Though, to her credit, she had hated it as well, but perhaps rightfully thought his taste buds were so skewed he might enjoy that one.

He had not.

But, today’s test—a…Saturnis? Sauternais?—was far from her best attempt. 

However, the dinner that preceded the tasting had been, as always, the highlight of his week.

“Quit making that face.”

He tried to hide his smile behind the glass. The daggers she was glaring at him were mostly for show, but he had learned the hard way that too much disrespect to a particular favorite of hers would lead to a rather frosty evening.

“I’m not making a face,” he protested, schooling his features with the slightest application of Occlumency. “It’s really sweet.”

The lazy toss of her hand into the air spoke just as clearly as the roll of her eyes and the flop back into her wrought-iron chair. The veranda they sat upon opened out onto the expansive French countryside, a faint breeze rippling the tablecloth that sat beneath plates that had once held their desserts. 

Pastry, of course.

He had tried, on numerous recent occasions, to pinpoint when it was that Fleur had become so much more open with him. Oh, her biting remarks and complete intolerance for most of his ‘foolishness’ hadn’t diminished in the slightest, but when he had first accepted her offer of a date in the Clumsy Badger, he’d never have expected to sit across from her while she chewed on her thumbnail, eyes focused on some nebulous point in the distance.

“Mother was right,” she murmured to herself. “You are simply unnatural.”

“Does that mean I win?” he asked, eyes wide in what he hoped was innocent curiosity.

Her attention snapped to him so fast he almost jumped and covered the motion by dragging a finger across the plate in front of him to pick up some last dregs of chocolate sauce.

“Certainly not,” she said, crossing her arms and most definitely not sulking. “You promised to be honest. I refuse to believe we haven’t come across a single wine you enjoy.”

He shrugged, tapping a fingernail on the stem of his wine glass. “We agreed to three attempts. This is at least the fifteenth.”

“You have not been truthful.”

“What about that time you slipped a mild dose of Veritaserum into my wine?”

Her eyes narrowed as she fought against a slight smile. “I should have picked a better wine. Or perhaps a better partner.”

He raised an eyebrow at the name and her slight twitch told him he most definitely had the upper hand. The rolling hills that surrounded them, dotted with trees and quaint roads, all situated beneath a starlit sky had absolutely nothing on the flustered face of Fleur Delacour. As rare as the blue moon itself and just as luminescent, it was the very thing of cozy, heartwarming dreams.

“Better partner?” he echoed, treading lightly onto ground neither often walked upon.

It had been a startlingly open night, after either their second or third late-night rendezvous following a wine-tasting, that the topic had come up in awkward, fitful bursts. Nearly two years outside of her split from Bill, Fleur had claimed she wouldn’t mind something more serious than the fun they’d had so far, and for himself, just over a year after the collapse of his engagement to Ginny, he had agreed.

Had agreed so readily, it seemed, that it took her by surprise and she began to backpedal and hadn’t quite stopped since.

He had been wounded at first, hurt and confused, but as she continued to babble, and he’d gotten to know her better, the pure, raw nervousness of such an easy commitment became clear. So, he’d given her some space and continued to accept her sometimes twice-weekly invitations out to either lunch or dinner. After a grace-period, he had found no small amount of fun at needling her about their…situation, and done right, he could produce spectacular results.

But the fun had worn away as the nights without her at his side grew longer and time became cruel, flitting by in a single blink on those wonderful nights they were together. 

When his glorious, wonderful, perfect hermitage had grown stale and boring, it was time to make some plans.

Turns out, planning is hard to do when your potential ‘partner’ is precisely as stubborn as she is beautiful.

But a quick, careful letter sent to the right person had been the answer to his questions.

As stubborn and beautiful as she was careful and shy.

His multifaceted flower, as he liked to call her in his head. Never aloud. Unless he was finally ready to leave it all behind.

Fleur’s eyes flashed in the rising moonlight, drawing him back into the careful game that had already earned him a dusting of pink across her fair cheeks.

“You know full well I didn’t-” she tried, then trailed off, the color spreading across her cheeks deepening as she dipped her head.

A fierce pang of affection almost made him call off his mild tease. As far as he could tell, she had never lied to him, even in a situation such as this. 

It made it very easy to fall for her.

“That is to say,” she continued, raising her nose into the air, “I am sure I could have invited someone with far better taste.”

“Perhaps it’s not my taste that’s lacking,” he said, the cute flush of her ears forcing him to take pity on her. Time to turn it all back on him. “Maybe the simple, store-bought stuff really is good and all this fancy wine is just a big scam. I’ll bet I could pick one of these up at the corner shop there at the end of my road.”

Where blue irises had flashed with embarrassment, they now sparked with pointed danger.

“Perhaps you can find some simple woman there who shares your proclivities for the very worst things in life.”

“I bet this hypothetical woman would admit when she’s lost her bet, especially after the gentleman has allowed it to far exceed its original boundaries.”

One edge of her lips quirked and he knew he had willfully given up his advantage.

“I doubt this hypothetical woman would be so passionate as to bed the judge to gain extra time in order to make her point. I can believe that the hero of the Magical World would prefer someone of such high standards.”

Damn. His ears were hot. Think of a retort, not of…

“Sounds like an admission that you lost to me,” he said, doing his best to hide what she affectionately referred to as his ‘drunkard’s blush’ since she claimed it crossed half his face in an instant.

The slight widening of her eyes sent minor victory pumping through his veins, and for good reason. It usually only took a casual mention of their entanglements to turn his thoughts to pleasant mud.

But tonight, he had a goal.

That could come later.

Rather than answer, she sat back and chewed her lip, her gaze dropping down to his half-finished glass.

“You can still take me out to dinner you know,” he said. Careful pushes.

“You could stand to take me out once in a while,” she grumbled while her shoulders sagged.

“I can cook pretty well. Baking isn’t the only thing I know how to do.”

A noise of partial assent and partial dissatisfaction issued from her throat. Her bright blue eyes scanned the table that sat between them and he could see the anxious gears turning behind her guarded gaze.

“I’ve got something planned already for when I win,” he said. “I promise it’s nothing too crazy. I think you’ll like it.”

A single eyebrow raised as she focused on him, the cracks in that still-present wall of hers calling to him.

“Are you certain?” she asked after a moment.

“I’m…mostly sure.”

“Mostly?”

“Almost positive.”

“You are not instilling me with much confidence.”

“Then you’ll just have to trust me.”

The eyebrow didn’t lower, but he didn’t miss the sudden tensing of her shoulders or the slight compression of her lips. His words hung in the air between them, too significant to be pulled away by the warm summer breeze.

One of them, anyway.

“Okay,” she murmured with a single nod of her head that set his heart to thundering behind his ribs.

Such a simple word to give such hope to the rest of his plan.

“O-okay!” he said, rising from his chair in an excited burst that had her blinking up at him.

“I am already regretting my decision,” she said with a tentative smile. “Very well. You win.”

The small handful of Galleons were already on the table before she had finished speaking and he stepped over to pull her up by the hand. The muffled squeak of surprise as he drew her up and close only served to fuel the excitement that flowed through his body.

“We’re apparating. Hold on tight. It’s quite a ways.”

He felt her intake of breath the moment before he pressed her even tighter. Not really out of necessity, but to revel in the warmth of her against him before he spun them into the blackness of apparition.

The ground that caught them was grassy and soft, an odd sensation following the hard stone terrace that had been their dining area. Sparse moonlight peeked through the clouds above, reflecting off the dark windows of his small home. At least it was a clear night in France.

He gave Fleur a quick squeeze before letting go and hurrying over to the little shed off to the side of the house.

“I think I will be offended if you use your victory for this,” she said, her voice floating through the air as he undid the charms on the old metal door with a wave of his wand. “I have been here quite a few times already and I will not be well pleased if you have forgotten.”

“I promise I haven’t,” he said, his voice reverberating in the small stone structure. 

He grabbed the length of wood from where it rested on its fancy holder and strode from the shed, closing it up with another casual wave of his wand.

The small smile she wore as she admired the house she had deemed early on as ‘lovely, if a bit quaint’ fell as he strode towards her, broom in hand. Her eyes went wide and she held both hands up as he drew near.

“Think of someth-”

Whatever she was going to say was cut off when he snaked his free hand around her middle and turned on the spot yet again, pulling them away from the familiar sight.

They appeared at the edge of a forest, the long grass beneath their feet cushioning their arrival. He had only a moment to gather his bearings before Fleur pushed her way out of his grasp.

“Would you quit apparating me all over the damn place,” she snapped, her usually minor accent returning in her irritation. “Where are we now? Why do you have a broom? Why can’t this wait until some other time?”

“France. I should think it would be obvious. Because we’re on a bit of a schedule.”

Before she could retort he pulled his wand and conjured his Patronus with an overlarge wave of his wand. After sending it away with a whispered message, he turned back to her to be met with obvious suspicion.

“What are you planning?” she asked, her eyes darting from the fading glow of the stag as it vanished into the trees to his Firebolt.

“Nothing sinister, I promise,” he said, twirling the broom around so he could mount it. 

He scooted closer to the bristles and beckoned her to him. She eyed the broom with a scornful eye, then turned the same look on him.

“You’ve clearly forgotten that I said I am not a good flyer.”

“I didn’t and  _ I _ am.”

Unimpressed, she continued to stare, unblinking.

“You said to trust you and now you act as though you have this grand plan and want to take me up in the air on a flimsy piece of wood?”

“Yep.”

When she didn’t step forward he tried his best, careless grin.

“If it helps, it’s the highest quality flimsy piece of wood in the world.”

“It does not.”

With a delicate touch, he patted the space in front of him and let his features grow earnest.

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She nodded slowly, though little of the tension left her shoulders as she took halting steps towards him.

“I was the youngest Seeker in a century,” he said as she ran a testing hand across the smooth wood.

“A position I recall you saying was full of dangerous dives and broken bones.”

“No dives. I promise.”

With a grace that belied her obvious nerves, she straddled the broom in front of him, her shoulders rising and falling with a deep breath. He wrapped an arm around her middle and pulled her against him, eliciting a slight noise of somewhat aggravated surprise from the woman he hoped liked him enough to respond favorably to his grand gesture. Sure, it wasn’t a marriage proposal or anything. But each step was big in its own way.

“Are you ready?” he murmured into her ear, reveling in the shiver that rolled down her spine.

“ _ Non.” _

“Would you prefer a countdown?”

“Just get on with it.”

The shriek that tore from her as he kicked off made his jaw ache from suppressing laughter that would earn him an elbow in the stomach if she managed to loosen her painful grip on his arms long enough to do so. He bracketed her with them to either side, the smooth cloth of her light blouse brushing against his skin in distinct contrast to the press of her nails slightly further down.

The air above the trees greeted him as the friend he was, full of motion and freedom that called to the pulse inside him that lived for spiraling dances through the sky. The wood beneath his fingers almost begged to be let free, to soar the sky at speeds that rivaled the wind itself. His very bones ached to vibrate with the pressure of a corkscrew dive and his heart yearned to beat with adrenaline that sent his senses up into heights matched only by the tops of his arcs.

But it yearned and beat for something much stronger now. It drummed against the back of a chest that pressed into a rigid spine and twitching muscles.

He planted a careful kiss on the tense skin of her shoulder that did nothing to relax her.

“Trust me,” he said, letting the ascension slow to a stop. “We’re not going to do anything crazy.”

“I-I saw you outfly a dragon,” she said through gritted teeth.

“And I’ve only gotten more practice since then. If it’ll make you feel more comfortable for me to go slow at first, that’s what we’ll do.”

Her jerky nod was his answer and he pressed in with his heel just enough to get them moving forward.

Even the wind seemed to sense Fleur’s tension and dropped to a gentle brush that did little more than shift her hair to the side enough to capture the moonlight overhead. Treetops passed below at a pace that rivaled the imperceptible turn of the Earth but every tiny relaxation he felt in the woman pressed to his front made it that much easier to quash his daredevil impulses.

“Why do you care about flying with me so much?” she asked once her grip had loosened to a slightly less painful level. “You mentioned it before, I think. After our third or fourth night together.”

“Fourth,” he agreed, nodding his head against her shoulder and pressing his cheek to hers in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. “Flying is…hard to explain. I do like to dive and do all sorts of crazy things,” he admitted, letting out a soft laugh when her fingers tightened on his arms again. “But I won’t. I promise. Being in the sky is so…freeing. It’s like your problems and worries and stress can’t get you up here. Back when I still had to worry about Voldemort, it was the only place I felt like I could breathe. I wanted to experience it with you. So you could come up into the freedom with me.”

She was silent for far longer than was comfortable and he kept himself occupied by gently nudging the broom back on track, just to the left of the hill rising through the trees ahead of them.

“That is…remarkably sweet.”

“I can be sweet,” he said, catching her smile out of his periphery. “I just usually choose not to be.”

“I know you can,” she said, so quiet as to almost be lost to the sky, even for their proximity. Her hands relaxed, and she ran her thumb across the side of his arm. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a bit of a surprise, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon enough.”

The muscles in her neck shifted as she finally let herself take in the view around them. Shimmering treetops below that sparkled in the moonlight. A pure, uncovered sky above that showcased every glittering star above them with a clarity that was impossible while standing on something so mundane as the ground.

Carefully, slowly, she turned enough to press a kiss to his cheek before turning back to face forward and let herself relax against his front.

“Though I do not feel my worries and stress vanishing below me, it’s rather nice up here. I think I can understand what you mean.” She tensed against him slightly before nodding her head. “You can go a bit faster if you want.”

He pressed his heel against the top of the bristles with only enough force to speed them up without the jerk of sudden acceleration. Headwind brushed against his cheeks and danced through his hair while Fleur squinted against the new breeze.

“What if you swallow a bug?” she asked as the hill passed on their right, marking that they were nearing their location.

“It doesn’t happen often. You’re not usually flying with your mouth open.” He paused. “I did almost swallow a snitch once though.”

“Mhm,” she hummed, in a tone he was well acquainted with that meant ‘I don’t quite believe that but stranger things have happened to you, so…’

“That was before the teacher who had Voldemort living in his head tried to curse my broom.”

She shook her head, stray wisps of hair brushing at his face as she did so.

“You’re going to have to tell me all those stories in the proper order one of these days. When you say them in little pieces like that, it sounds completely insane.”

“In order, they sound even less sane. One time, I stabbed a girl’s diary with a basilisk fang.”

Something imperceptible in her body shifted and he could feel, even without seeing, that her smile had slipped away.

“Yes, I heard about that one.”

How he wished for a wall he could put his head through. Of course Bill had told her about the time he’d had to save Ginny.

Skirting quickly around the subject of both their exes, he let one of his hands go off the broom shaft and squeezed her hand.

“Do you recognize where we are?” he asked.

She peered down at the dwindling treetops and rolling hills below.

“I do not often travel anywhere by air, so I doubt anything will look familiar…” 

Her retort faded as a sinuous narrow road came into view below them, snaking its way out of the small valley between two hills. Old stone half-walls lined either side as it curved off into the distance towards a small, brightly lit building.

“Well, I thought maybe…” he said, proud of the way his voice didn’t shake from the sudden bout of nerves. 

He hadn’t really had to do anything like this last time.

Her back went suddenly rigid and she turned to look at him as best she could, though he kept his gaze steadily forward.

“My…parents’?” she wondered aloud, turning back to face the building they had angled towards. “But how…? Why?”

“I might’ve sent a letter not too long ago,” he answered, slowing the broom again to give him time to explain before they arrived. “I wanted to figure out how I could…you know…properly address the whole…partner thing.”

“The whole…So you went to my parents?”

“Merlin, no. I wrote to your sister, then to your parents. She thought it was very romantic, for the record.”

Fleur’s voice was as flat as it could be while incredulity still colored her tone. “Gabrielle thought visiting my parents was romantic? Are you positive?”

“The thought behind it, I think. I know I probably surprised you when it first came up-” She began to shake her head but he barreled over top of her disagreement. “You can’t tell me I didn’t, because you brought it up then wouldn’t talk about it again.”

“I just…I hadn’t expected to say anything,” she said, voice quiet enough he had to strain to hear her. “It fell out of my mouth in all that lovely afterglow and when you said yes…I thought it might’ve been just post-sex good feelings that were making us giddy.”

“You could’ve just asked me the next day you know,” he said, steering the broom down to land on the path a short walk from the front of the stonework house ahead.

She got off the broom far less gracefully than she’d embarked and stared off at her parents’ house, bright windows reflected in her wide eyes.

“I couldn’t,” she said after he had extended a hand to her and begun a sedate walk up to the house once she had accepted. “I was thrilled that you said you wanted it too. So much so that…” 

She trailed off and turned to him with a weak smile.

“I’m sure you can understand why that frightened me.”

He tilted his head from side to side as he thought.

Truthfully, it wasn’t that hard to understand her reticence. He had been eager to take the step into something a little more official than the simple unattached whatever-it-was they had been enjoying. But when she had backed out, the depth of his disappointment had been what frightened him, that and the sudden surge of need to keep her from vanishing from his life.

The next step was easy.

Not taking the next step was what was so scary.

Which if he let it, would terrify him to his core. True, he hadn’t been married as she had, but his only long-term relationship had imploded with a vicious fight that still rankled over a year later.

And somehow he was already ready to try again?

He stopped their slow walk with a tug on her hand and turned her to face him.

“I understand, and my victory only applied to the flight. We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but…” he trailed off, casting a glance over to the inviting home, “but, I do want to be together, properly. Whatever that means. And if we go in to meet with your parents, that’s kind of what I’m expecting to follow. But even if we don’t go in, I don’t really plan on going anywhere unless you tell me to.”

At that, she frowned, though her eyes softened.

“And how exactly am I supposed to say no after that?”

“That was the idea.”

She chewed at her lip for a moment, casting another glance over to the house.

“I…want us to go in. So very badly.” She turned back and smiled a shaky smile at him. “It was almost a year before Bill met my parents. Day one of the relationship is a bit of a leap in the other direction.”

He wasn’t quite sure how it was he found his voice but he managed it, though whether it was for good or ill was a debate they’d have for a long time.

“I mean, I met Ginny’s parents when she was ten.”

Fleur let out a nervous laugh and restarted their walk up to the house.

“Why must you always tell me things about your past in the strangest way possible?”

“Just a habit,” he said, then smiled. “I had a huge crush on you during the tournament.”

“Of course you did.”

Whatever part of his heart that was still a teenager gave a strange sort of thump at seeing the haughty, aloof Fleur that had captivated him so early on, still alive and well in the woman he had come to cherish.

Apolline answered the door with all the mock surprise she could muster, which even to Harry’s untrained eye was a poor showing that had Fleur rolling her eyes. Her father, the same, jovial man Harry had first met at her wedding so many years before welcomed him like an old friend who had gone much too long without visiting. Gabrielle offered a simple wave and a grin as she passed on her way to her bedroom, book in hand. They were ushered swiftly into a small, cozy sitting room that held just enough chairs for everyone to have their own seat, though Harry found his conspicuously at the center of attention.

The Delacours, Harry expected, did their very best to make him regret coming to visit them with their daughter in tow, though with no detectable malice. Where he had received a very general and awkward one-sided conversation with Mr. Weasley about his relationship with Ginny, the Delacours seemed content to learn everything they could about him in his short time in their home. More than once he felt the heat traveling to his ears in the very way that earned him a fond, if pitying smile from Fleur. She would, on occasion, divert her parents from their friendly interrogation to news about mutual friends and family that hadn’t been heard from in ages, just to let him catch his breath.

Once he had satiated their curiosity and Fleur had somewhat emphatically put a stop to the rest of their nearly-invasive questions, they excused themselves for the night with promises to come for dinner sometime in the coming weeks. Gabrielle poked her head out to say goodbye, a wicked grin sliding across her face as she gave Harry a wink and vanished back into her bedroom. He made a mental note to ask George for a few tips on what he suspected would be some well-deserved revenge.

They departed a half-hour later after the final round of goodbyes and the chatter in the doorway had finally run its course. Fleur finally put an end to it all with a quick, unnoticed look to Harry that set his blood alight and she told her parents they still had somewhere to be.

Not much later, Harry let out a long breath when they apparated back to his house beneath the cloudy English sky. 

“Do you regret your persistence yet?” she asked with a laugh as she tugged him towards the front door. “We could have come back for the night right after dinner.”

“Maybe a little,” he said with a grin that earned him a half-hearted glare in return. “It’s abundantly clear they care about you. It’s nice, in its own way.”

“They can be enthusiastic,” Fleur said, pulling open the door and leading him inside. “I hope they did not upset you.”

“It was fine,” he said, kissing her just long enough that she leaned forward to continue and made a noise of irritation when he pulled away, holding up his Firebolt.

“It’s just a broom,” she said, disentangling her hand from his and running it up his arm. “Put it in a corner somewhere.”

The impatient look that followed her jab had him considering doing just that, and he opted to set it on the table before bundling her into a fervent kiss.

“I feel like some idiot teenager,” she complained while tilting her head to allow him access to the curve of her neck. “I’m a grown woman that’s thrilled to have a boyfriend that gets grilled by her parents.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” he said, steering her backward down the short hall with hands that slid beneath her shirt to touch the warm skin of her waist.

“I was ready to leave ten minutes in.”

The door to his room was thankfully open and he moved her inside with careful movements, lifting her blouse over her head with one smooth motion.

“I’m surprised it took you so long to say anything,” he murmured as he drank in the sight of her, lit only by the faint moonlight spilling through his window.

The smile she gave him was far from shy as she reached her hands behind her back to undo the clasp.

“I let my mind wander when you were telling them about our second date.”

“Good thing I left off certain parts then.”

“But you do remember them?” she asked, an illicit shudder rolling across her body as he nipped at the very spot he had discovered that night.

“Of course.”

“Show me.”


End file.
